THE PAKISTANI flag flying over Rochdale town hall has sparked a political row which an MP says could ruin years of hard work to combat child sex grooming in the town.

The green and white colours of Pakistan were flown from the town hall mast on March 23 to celebrate Pakistan's National Day.

Rochdale's Labour MP Simon Danczuk tweeted a picture of himself at the event – which sent outspoken columnist Katie Hopkins apoplectic.

She sparked a furious online row posting a picture of eight men convicted of child exploitation offences, asking Mr Danczuk "if they were his friends too".

Rochdale has been the centre of a child sex grooming storm in recent years after nine men – eight of Pakistani heritage and one Afghan – were jailed for sex trafficking, rape and other sex offences.

At least 47 under-age girls – all of them white - were identified as victims, sparking debater as to whether the crimes were racially motivated and whether repeated failures by police to investigate were a result of fear of being branded racist

Mr Danczuk has now reported Ms Hopkins for allegedly inciting racial hatred after her Twitter attacks.

The politician, who says he has received death threats over the tweets, has blamed the Sun columnist for ruining three-years of progress the town has made "in terms of confronting the heinous crime of child grooming".

But talking on LBC last night Ms Hopkins, 40, alleged his attempts to get the police involved were a ploy to deflect attention from reports he enjoyed watching pornography.

She said: “He was caught watching porn, he needed to deflect attention from that news story because it didn't read well for him."

In somewhere like Rochdale, you can't raise a Pakistani flag and talk about community cohesion in the same sentence.

Katie Hopkins

Mr Danczuk admitted yesterday, after ‘favouriting’ hard-core porn on Twitter, that he watched pornography which was "healthy".

The 48-year-old, who is married to selfie-loving Karen Danczuk, said: "I am a man of the world and it is part of life, many people do.

"I've been very open about that and been clear about my views on porn.

"The idea that I'm shying away from having a conversation about it is nonsense, but what isn't nonsense is Katie Hopkins.

"She's trying to exploit what has happened in Rochdale. We've done tremendous work but it will leave people feeling vulnerable and leaving them wondering if they're going to be attacked because of what she's stirred up."

Mr Danczuk claims because of the tweets the North West Infidels - a Nationalist group splintered from the EDL - are now coming to march in Rochdale.

Ms Hopkins said she had weighed up lodging a complaint that he is wasting police time by reporting her but said: "I'm not that childish."

She added: "For me, in somewhere like Rochdale, you can't raise a Pakistani flag and talk about community cohesion in the same sentence.

"If we look at why someone didn't call the police earlier when our white girls were being attacked by these gentlemen, if someone had called the police earlier then that would have been a good thing wouldn't it?"